FWD (CN) Critics who live in glass houses should be wary

August 6, 2006

Shanghai Daily

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/art/2006/08/05/288200/Critics_who_live_in

_glass_houses_should_be_wary.htm

by Wang Yong

2006-08-05

I COULD not believe my ears when I heard that 50,000 dogs were

killed - many beaten to death - in a county in Yunnan Province,

because local people were afraid of rabies.

Even if rabies was so rampant that vaccination was not sufficient,

and the dogs had to be exterminated, authorities in Mouding County

could have been more humane and used more lethal injection.

I sympathize with local officials whose only purpose was to protect

the health of the people in a state of emergency. But still they

could have been more humane and selective. They went overboard.

But I was more shocked when I read comments from some foreign readers

calling China " a barbaric nation " for those isolated incidents.

One email to Shanghai Daily reads: " What kind of country are you?

Killing 50,000 dogs! I will tell you one thing...you people are

subhuman. And you will NEVER become a superpower like the United

States...You people are really sick! "

The letter was not signed, carrying only an email address:

WordenDot.

Sinikka Crosland from Westbank, BC (tracs) said: " Clearly

there is no rabies vaccination program in China. Isn't it time to

initiate one? (This shows how ignorant Sinikka is about China.)

Monsters have no place in a civilized society. Best regards, and good

luck with the moral progress in your country. "

Shelein Munger, a 37-year-old female business owner in the US state

of Tennessee, said: " I have ordered all my purchasing managers to

review existing orders with our suppliers for any Chinese-made

products and cancel those orders regardless of the cost of restocking

charges. "

Don't be hysterical

In these letters and many others, I heard hysteria rather than

reason.

Every country has problems and many Chinese people are appalled by

the slayings of those poor dogs.

Every nation learns or should learn from its mistakes and tragedies.

But you won't call a nation " barbaric " because some dogs were not

properly handled.

Shall we call the United States a barbaric nation and its people

subhuman because white policemen there beat up black guys and

American soldiers killed innocent civilians in Iraq?

I regard the US as a great nation, and I'am honored to have many

American friends who are great and kind and understanding.

I say the US is great, although I know there are brutal cases there.

I would never call the American people " really sick " just because

some Americans are sick indeed.

An enlightened person in a civilized society knows he or she must

reason in a balanced way and that he or she must not be carried away

by emotion, bias and contempt for others.

China has 5,000 years of civilization. There's no reason to learn to

become " a superpower like the United States. "

Yes, China can learn a lot from the US, such as its scientific

spirit.

But is it glorious to become a superpower that treats Iraqi prisoners

of war as if they were not human?

Is it glorious to allow white policemen to beat up poor black guys?

Come on, be honest with yourselves.

A well-educated person from a truly civilized nation never treats or

even calls any other nation barbaric. Only upstarts or an upstart

nation does so. The US remains a great nation in my view, but there's

no doubt many Americans know nothing beyond the two oceans. They are

self-centered, arrogant, and ignorant.

They care about dogs, but turn a blind eye to chickens that are being

raised in a very inhumane way.

Who would ever cry over the massacre of chickens in the face of avian

flu? In the ultimate analysis, humans are cruel to most animals.

Even if they are not preventing bird flu, Americans are notoriously

cruel to chickens. Peter Singer, a professor of bioethics at

Princeton University, says he is horrified at the way chickens are

being raised in the US.

" Tens of billions of chickens produced today never go outdoors. They

are bred to have voracious appetites and gain weight as fast as

possible, then raised in sheds that can hold more than 20,000 birds, "

he said. " Slaughtered when they are only 45 days old, their immature

bones can hardly bear the weight of their bodies. Some collapse

and ... soon die, their fate irrelevant to the economics of the

enterprise. "

As if this is not bad enough, to prevent chickens in crowded

conditions from pecking and harming each other, producers sear off

all birds' beaks with a hot blade - no anesthetic or analgesic is

used to relieve the pain, Peter said.

Did our American readers know the brutal things going on around them

in their own country? Did I call American people " subhuman? "

These readers represent many Americans who think they are the best

breed in the world. They assume they have the monopoly on wisdom, be

it about democracy or human rights.

In China, I know many good Americans who are here to help us

genuinely.

I also know many Americans who are here to show off their sense of

superiority, though they have none except that they speak English.

August 7, 2006

This is not China's first incident, is not isolated. China is skinning dogs

alive for their fur. To protect the health of people does not mean that animals

should be massacred, even those that had owners and some that were even

vaccinated. It is barbaric, it is inhumane and there's no excuse for it. I

feel no sympathy for the local officials that tricked the dogs in their owner's

home to make them bark just to kill them.

Liz

OAARS

Dr John Wedderburn <john wrote: